“Daddy, will you play with me?” It’s a common refrain from the Girl when we’re home alone, just the three of us, and the Boy is down for his nap. And lately, the answer to my question “What would you like to play?” is itself a question: “Can we play a board game?”

It’s an opportunity to see how much the Girl has really matured in the last year. We play Sorry; she loses — no tears. We play Monopoly Junior; she wins — no hysterics.

I find my own attitudes towards these games are vastly different, though. Sorry depends a great deal on chance, but there’s a bit of strategy involved. You draw a seven and you have to think of how best to split those seven moves between two pawns. You draw a “Sorry!” card and you have to determine which is the best piece of your opponent to replace, and it has to be a balance between what helps you the most and what hurts your opponent the most.

Monolopy Junior, though, is pure chance. Roll the dice; move the piece; buy the property (which in Junior involves merely buying a ticket booth — looks like a regular Monolopy house — and putting it on the square) or pay the owner. Mixed among the typical Chance cards are cards that allow a player to get a free ticket booth, which can entitle the player in some instances to confiscate the opponent’s existing booth. It’s a frustratingly random game, and I often find myself relieved as I start hemorrhaging money and the end approaches.

Yet boring as it is for me, I play with the Girl whenever she asks. As a husband and father, I no longer have a monopoly on my own time or interests.